


Assorted Tumblings

by Red



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Fauns & Satyrs, Ficlet Collection, Grumpy Omega Erik, Inspired by Photography, Intersex, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Melodramatic Old Erik, Old Married Couple, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Rape/Non-con Elements, Scenting, Spanking, Video & Computer Games
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-05-11 00:41:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 4,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5607163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red/pseuds/Red
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These are just assorted ficlets from tumblr that weren't really part of a larger challenge, so they went uncollected until now. Warnings in the notes before each chapter, if they pertain (non-con is pretty much ch. 9)</p><p>1. Charlotte/Erika, canon-divergent roadtrip au, 5-minute ficlet<br/>2. Charles/Erik, omegaverse, scenting<br/>3. Old mutants in love, playing Rock Band for the first time. :D<br/>4. Melodramatic Erik, making way for ducklings?<br/>5. Follow-up to The First Season, C/E, omegaverse, dehumanization<br/>6. 3-sentence ficlets (3 of them, C/E)<br/>7. Omegaverse, C/E, pizza and knotting (bless the innocent corporate twitter accounts)<br/>8. C/E, canon-verse, spanking<br/>9. C/E, satyrs & fauns AU, warning for pregnant sex, NONCON, and watersports<br/>10. C/E, Digital Devil Saga fusion</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the 5-minute fic challenge. Thanks to significant owl for tagging me!

“We shouldn’t do this.” 

Erika doesn’t take any heed of the words, her touch still skimming over Charlotte’s thigh, and Charlotte clears her throat. 

“I–my god, Erika, what if we’re caught?” 

Heaven knows it’s enough trouble, two women driving across the midst of this endless country, unaccompanied. Add to that their powers, the unfriendly thoughts of foreigners always hovering around small-town minds, the fact Erika lets Charlotte do most the talking even though it galls because they’ve found them less odd about the accent–

Erika laughs, a soft exhale against her neck. 

“Would they believe it? Women like us don’t exist, remember,” and Erika’s hand presses heedlessly up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the amazing NYT Fassbender photoshoot, particularly [this image](http://45.media.tumblr.com/08f771ed2070566faa588b4135745403/tumblr_nukicx5z0S1rjn473o1_500.gif). Original ficlet can be found [here on tumblr](panzercat.tumblr.com/post/129749605789/erik-has-just-parked-when-he-first-notices-the). 
> 
> Warnings for omegaverse, and my perennial favorite trope: Grumpy Omega Erik. :D

Erik has just parked when he first notices the familiar signature of Charles’s car, heading his direction.

Smirking to himself, he steps out of his truck and locks up. 

The factory isn’t on the way to the airport. Not even close. He takes his time walking through the parking lot, trailing beside the fence.

«You’ll make me late», he projects, the moment he can actually hear the engine.

Charles doesn’t send anything concrete back, just the barest glimpse of chagrined amusement, and Erik stops walking.

The car pulls up alongside him. 

It isn’t a parking zone, but somehow Erik doubts that Charles cares—or that he’ll have any trouble for it. He can’t be here long, for one thing; for another, all the alphas Erik works with find Charles (or, more aptly, Charles’s powers) a bit intimidating.

Erik wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Leaning against the fence, he crosses his arms, waiting for Charles.

“Darling,” Charles says, slamming the car door behind him. A few of Erik’s coworkers are filing by, trying not to stare. 

Charles isn’t paying any mind.

“Forget something?” Erik asks.

The answer, Erik knows, is no. Even if it weren’t blatantly obvious that Charles is just suffering from alpha separation syndrome—like he does every trip—in one hand, Charles has a brown paper sack.

“Of course not,” Charles says. “I just thought I’d bring you lunch.”

“I get lunch at the cafeteria. You know that.”

Charles shrugs. He knows that, sure. But here he is all the same, walking up to Erik with what appears to be food enough for three.

“Perhaps your alpha wanted to bring something a touch more fortifying,” Charles purrs, pressing the bag into Erik’s hand, “before he left his poor omega to fend for himself.”

There’s hardly a foot between them, now; up against him so close, Charles’s scent is electric. Erik breathes him in, soaking it up. They’ve already scented for hours, for days; this business trip wasn’t a surprise, they’ve known for months and planned accordingly around Erik’s heat and tried to drink their fill of each other. But it’s not enough. He can never have enough.

“I’m sure you’ll provide just as well,” he breathes, feeling Charles leaning in, pressing closer and closer, “when you’re in England.”

Charles will, even when it frustrates Erik, even when Charles swears he understands that Erik can provide for himself. Erik had been alone a long while, unbonded long enough for the mating agencies to drop his case and chalk him up as a complete loss. At the factory, he’s one of the shift leads. He has his own house, his own truck; he can more than afford to feed himself.

But whatever the logic of the situation—and however permissive and proud Charles may be, claiming an omega like Erik for a mate—alpha biology is an insistent thing.

“Mm,” Charles agrees. He isn’t thinking with much more than his nose, Erik realizes, and he’s almost shoving right up against Erik’s neck now. “I should go. We’ll both be late,” Charles says, seemingly trying to convince himself.

“We will.” Erik reaches down with his free hand, touches his fingers lightly against Charles’s wrist. He already smells so much like his mate, but it’s irresistible—to rub his fingers over that pulse-point where scent gathers, to have more of Charles on him, to bathe in his alpha’s claim.

“I need to go,” Charles whispers, licking his lips. He’s staring at Erik’s neck. 

Over his shoulder, Erik can see another of his coworkers walk by, and he bares his teeth, daring them to comment.

He’s never hid, not being mutant, not being omega, not being unbonded into his late thirties—and he won’t hide this, either. He won’t hide how territorial he is over this brilliant, insufferable alpha.

He lets go of Charles’s arm, and reaches back for the fence, winding his fingers through the links. The metal is calling to him, already, and now he lets his powers twine all the length of the wire; letting it ground him as he turns his head, showing throat.

“Before you do,” he murmurs, eyes downcast. 

He isn’t customarily so submissive. This isn’t him—but there’s something in Charles, some current that has changed him, and he clenches at the fence as Charles scents.

“God,” Charles groans, pressing his face against the pulse point, right out here in the open, “Erik—”

Erik can’t help gasping, breathless. He doesn’t know how many people walk by them, he doesn’t want to imagine the talk he’ll have to put up with, today at lunch—what the boss will say, what the union will say, what people will think of Charles. A little slick trickles from him, right then. He isn’t even near heat.

He breathes out and nudges Charles away.

“Go,” he growls, blushing. Charles steps away slowly, as if in a daze. He’s smiling, and his startling pale eyes are glazed over, and he’s so red, Erik can barely make out his freckles.

“Right,” Charles says, breathing out heavily, trying to clear Erik’s scent. “Right. Sorry.”

Erik shakes his head. He’s still desperately holding on to the fence. He isn’t sure he wouldn’t fall over, otherwise.

“It’s fine, don’t be. Just—you’ll be late for your flight.”

For a moment, Charles just stands there, not moving. Erik considers his options. One late call, what would that matter? He’d hear no end of it tomorrow, sure, but he never calls in sick. He could ride with Charles, just to the airport, make sure he gets on that plane—

But then, Charles looks away, and takes another step back. And another, and another, and he’s got his hand on the car door again, finally, before he looks up at Erik again.

«Keep your heat for me,» he sends, grinning as he opens the car.

Erik should be offended, but he can’t help smirking back.

“Come home soon,” he says aloud, letting the fence go as he prepares himself to punch in late, “And maybe I will.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Done for some old "pick a quote, I'll write a fic" meme, for the prompt " **I didn't know you could do that** ". Old men in love (playing Rock Band). :)

“Ninety-eight percent,” Charles manages, having stared at the screen for what seems like an hour. 

“You did well enough,” Erik replies. Waving one hand slightly, the controller levitates a bit. Not that it _needs_ to–Erik could very well manipulate the console itself without using the controller at all–but by now, it’s old habit. 

It was a welcome turn of the tables, when they started doing this. After two decades (okay, one–it doesn’t count if Erik’s in solitary) of being accused of cheating every single time they played chess, it was eminently satisfying to dismiss Erik’s ridiculous Bubble Bobble scores on simple electronic interference.

Naturally, the Nintendo he’d bought for the game room had always been intended for the students and not, say, for his supposed nemesis. And while it was, indeed, quite popular with the kids (enough so that Charles found himself spending a frustrating amount of money on new consoles and games whenever someone decided to do the transdimensional equivalent of throwing the controller at the television)… 

Somehow, here he and Erik were, sneaking into the game room at three in the morning. 

Just like they’ve done for the last two decades. 

“Eighty-five percent is perfectly respectable,” Erik is reassuring, as he pages idly through the list of songs. 

Now that their scores are off the screen, he can’t stop staring at Erik. 

“On _medium_. You were playing on expert!" 

Erik shrugs, one-shouldered and dismissive. Charles can’t even get annoyed with Erik’s thoughts, which are entirely _well, naturally i have always been better at games of skill._

Adjusting the guitar again, feeling self-conscious about holding it–-he never had learned to play, though it was a nice trick in college, projecting the illusion that he _could_ –-Charles can’t even pay enough attention to the screen to "help” Erik choose an appropriate next song. 

“I didn’t know you could do that,” he says, still a bit in awe. This isn’t at all like getting trounced in Mario Kart. 

“Do _what_?" 

"Sing, what do you think?" 

Erik looks back at him, raising an eyebrow. 

"It’s not really singing. You just have to get the pitch right,” Erik explains, like he didn’t just get a near-perfect score singing a rather impressive rendition of Gimme Shelter, and Charles smiles, picking up the guitar again to quickly choose the next song. 

“Charles, I am not–”

“You chose the last one,” Charles interrupts, as the drums start up, “and besides, we’ll need more data to see if your pitch hypothesis holds.”

Shooting Charles one last glare, Erik turns back to the screen and starts singing.

He’s far too competitive, Charles knows, to back down from any challenge. And with this song? 

There’s enough time to gloat, briefly, over Erik’s struggle with Geddy Lee’s vocal range before he has to start struggling with the fake guitar, hoping for a slightly more impressive score now that he’s no longer going to be quite so distracted by the talent Erik’s apparently kept hidden all these years.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Done for a prompt challenge for the quote, "get off the road!". I think at the time I was about to go to Boston, so my brain had gone a little Make Way For Ducklings?

As usual, Charles was the last person to hear about it.

No matter how many times it’s happened since ‘72, it’ll still never stop driving him up the wall to learn about the latest Ridiculous Dramatic Megalomaniac Gesture through the bloody television. 

Luckily, Boston isn’t a far flight in the Blackbird. Less-than-luckily, the Erik of today is as embarrassingly self-centered and camera-hungry as he was forty years back, and he’s still in the middle of I-90. 

Charles manages to dissuade the press conference from targeting him as he approaches. It helps, of course, that they’re rather distracted by a mass of enraged commuters, three of his students, Emma Frost (who, Charles would like stated for the record, should actually be managing all Magneto-related crises in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts), and Erik himself. 

And everyone’s outfits. Not for the first time, Charles wonders if there’s a strong genetic link between mutation and appalling taste. 

\---

“Erik,” he calls out, once he’s within earshot. Erik has elected to wear the helmet. Some days, Charles is sure he’s only still using it to maximize his viewership: even if the next day’s headlines are all Xavier and Mags at it Again!, Erik has taken the adage “any press is good press” completely to heart. 

Turning toward him, arms swept out in a gesture of ludicrous grandeur, Erik looks quite prepared to start in with his usual “so kind of you to join us, Charles,” speech; and he gets as far as “ah, so kind—” before Charles interrupts.

“Get off of the road.”

 _You look an utter fool_ , he wants to add; but it’s rather implied, and he’s not willing to see himself on every network in what’ll be broadcast as part five-hundred-and-seventy-three of the ongoing (and entirely public) marital strife of the two most powerful mutants in the nation. 

There’s a brief moment where Erik slouches a bit, as if wounded by Charles’s dismissal, but he corrects for it swiftly, bringing a hand up to gesture back a few police cruisers. 

“Not,” he states, gesturing aside a few other cars less because it’s necessary and more as it makes his cape sweep in a way he no doubt believes is fetching, “until my conditions are met.”

Charles does not roll his eyes. He’s far enough off that Erik wouldn’t notice, anyway, and he’s not chancing that one of the press wouldn’t catch it on tape. 

He doesn’t even want to ask what the conditions _are_. It’s either going to be entirely impossible (in which case, why ask) or entirely reasonable but sure not to be honored (in which case, it’s just depressing), and that’s about when he hears the quacking. 

“I—um,” he starts, which is a bit humiliating as the cameras have turned near him.

Not _on_ him, though, luckily enough. Just about everyone—himself, the press, the police, Emma Frost, and the handful of commuters not overcome with rage—are entirely focused on one duck. 

One duck, and eight tiny ducklings. 

Erik makes a broad sweep with one arm, as if to summon the ducks across six lanes of interstate. That seems to be where they’re headed, anyway, and while Charles is entirely certain that any creature that attempts to walk across the few miles of interstate not currently _underground_ is simply meant to be removed from the gene pool... he has the impression that saying so won’t win him any favors. 

Nonetheless.

“Ducklings,” he can’t help saying. “Isn’t this a bit… cliché?" 

Erik keeps arm outstretched. The ducklings continue across the road. The cameras follow them, and Erik’s no doubt framed in the background of half the shots. 

Charles sighs, as it’s not like anyone’s going to notice. Privately, he also finds this whole ruse a bit endearing—but he’s not about to say so. Yes, maybe this’ll win Erik some points with the media. 

But if he wants to flirt with Charles, he can do so properly—not by forcibly holding up traffic for a few ducks with a death-wish—and as he heads back to the Blackbird he sends Emma one last message reminding her that jet fuel isn’t exactly as cheap as it once was.

Whether or not she cares, well. That’s another matter. All the same, he waits til he’s just about out of her range to send the last:

 _But do feel free to call me_ , he tells her, _if he’s planning something more fowl._


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A follow-up ficlet written for widgenstain, from [The First Season](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3458918) universe. Past Charles/Erik, same warnings as the original verse apply (dystopian AU, captivity, dehumanization of mutants, forced breeding).

Charles can’t get the mutant out of his mind, later.

That alone isn’t unusual, after having been with another of his kind during rut. He often feels haunted by it, the memories of what he’s done–who knows how many of those mutants wound up with young, who knows what happened to those children. Somehow, Charles doubts any of them are living in a situation better than his own; his captivity is at least a vaguely comfortable one.

But his next rut… He feels strange, a feverish, itchy nausea running through him when he wakes one morning. He’s disoriented enough that he isn’t willing to try muddling a human mind (no matter how familiar) when Moira comes to find him curled in his sweat-soaked bedding, so he doesn’t know if she had anything planned for him.

He doesn’t know if she has an idea of what’s wrong. Charles only has the vaguest theory of it, himself. He’d heard of something before from once-wild mutants, the sickness of parted mates, but he’d dismissed it. Nothing happened to him after he’d been mated with someone, he’d never felt any sort of illness.

Groaning, he burrows deeper into the old blankets. He doesn’t know what Moira had planned, what she thinks of him getting ill, if she’s ever read of anything like this in her mutant-biology texts. Charles only knows that she leaves him with water and food, and if she had a trip planned, she cancels it.


	6. 3-sentence fics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three fics from a 3-sentence story meme I did back in 2014. #1 is a crossover AU with Shin Megami Tensei's Digital Devil Saga (i suppose all you need to know is, the game characters are forced to turn into cannibalistic demons). #2 is gymbro Charles and Erik flirting. #3 is student!AU, Erik being distracting to Charles.

Erik snaps at the remains of the nekomata’s flesh, at the viscera dangling from Charles’s fearsome still-transformed jaws–and not out of instinct, Erik realizes even in his strange form, nor hunger, as all the members of their straggling tribe have bolted down their shares already, save Charles. 

Charles, who says always that these other demons were human once, too; Charles, who resists feeding until the monster in him goes mad and he’s forced to transform; Charles who forever turns back too quick after and wastes his effort, vomiting the meat steaming and vile onto the rocks. 

Whether or not the other demons were human, Charles must survive–he can heal them, he’s the gentlest of any of them in this form–and even now he only hisses, and lets Erik lick the blood from his fur, and blessedly stays transformed.

***

As Charles finishes another set, he checks out the corner of his eye, and yep, there’s Mr. Tall, Handsome and Triangular, back from another 400m dash to do another ten back squats.

What started out as an innocent “bump-into-each-other-occasionally-at-the-apartment-gym” has quickly ramped up to “Charles-wondering-when-he’ll-have-to-call-the-paramedics,” as Mr. Dorito here is determined to show off in any way possible–but primarily, it seems, by exhausting his cardiovascular system completely, and he’s pouring sweat as he adds weights to the bar. 

“Go easy, my friend,” Charles calls out as the guy keeps panting, “Remember: the heart is the strongest muscle… but I’m not keen to get in the extra cardio, giving you CPR."

***

Flipping open one of the back issues of Journal of Genetics he’d paid a fortune for, Charles leaned forward a bit from where he sprawled, belly-down on the floor, all prepared to get a bit of extra research done for his lecture, at the advice of his TA, when… when his pants got pulled down, and he squawked out an embarrassed “what the hell, Erik!” 

Erik, the engineering student that inexplicably (but somewhat happily for Charles) fell into a work-study assisting with Intro Genetics, grinned from where he crouched, having just licked Charles’s arse. 

“Don’t mind me, Professor,” he said, cheekily, “You’ve research to do, and I’m sure the freshmen will be so disappointed if they didn’t hear yet more about the sociopolitical implications of Haldane’s work.”


	7. knot first, or pizza?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles/Erik, omegaverse, warning for knotting. This one was done with the encouragement of Leepala but MORE IMPORTANTLY THE MARKETING DECISIONS OF ONE PIZZA HUT EMPLOYEE, asking the important question: [knot first, or pizza](http://panzercat.tumblr.com/post/138157653004/important-questions-being-asked-on-the-pizza-hut)?

_Bzzzt_

At first, the sound doesn’t even register. 

_Bzzt. Bzzzt..._

Then, abruptly, Erik’s all too aware of his surroundings, and realizes exactly what’s happening beyond the perimeter of Charles’s chair. 

The doorbell buzzes once again, and Erik growls and goes to sit up and nope. No, that is... certainly not going to work. 

He twists around to glare at Charles. Charles, who is entirely content to just sit there, making that stupid dopey face he always makes right after he's started to come. 

“You just had to do this, didn’t you,” Erik says. “'Let's just fool around', you said.”

Charles hums, sounding not all that put out by this turn of events. He attempts pulling Erik in, so they’re chest-to-back again, where he can nuzzle at Erik’s bonding mark. 

It doesn’t go over well. 

“Charles,” Erik growls, swatting at him. “Be serious.” 

“Mmm. Can’t be the pizza. Eat24 said forty-five to sixty minutes.” 

“That’s what _all_ delivery sites say!” Erik braces himself on the arms of the chair and tries to get up again, only to collapse back with a curse. The pizza guy has taken to banging on the door, and Erik despairs of ever getting dinner. 

“It’ll be fine, dear. We can always order again–-” 

“No. You got us into this situation, you’ll get us out. I can get the door, you make him drop it off on the table–-”

Charles laughs, and Erik would think he’d refuse. 

He’s always so stingy about using his powers. 

“It’s a good thing we paid by card,” Charles says, instead, and this time when he tugs Erik close-–well, maybe it’s just that he’s distracted reaching his powers out, opening the door and tracking the motions of the delivery person by the keys in their pocket. But this time, he goes willingly.


	8. canon-verse: spanking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for an "submit porn to someone's askbox" meme back in 2014 for significantowl! Charles/Erik, spanking and semi-public nudity (is it ever fully public when Charles is using his powers? hmm)

“You do trust me,” Charles says, fact and not question. 

Erik says nothing at all, the side of his face pressed against the cool unforgiving surface of Charles’s desk. 

The office door’s wide-open, the mansion humming with midday energy, with minds that’d just as well see Erik run through with lasers or claws, and here Erik is with his ass in the air and Charles’s hand running firm down his side. 

“Say it,” Charles purrs, all sweet demand, all temptation sitting just behind Erik. When Erik doesn’t speak, he squeezes at one cheek, punishing and proprietary. “Say it.” 

Breathing out, Erik instead reaches for his belt, undoes his fly with hands rather than powers. Yes, he thinks, not quite directing it at Charles—because this is answer enough, hiking his pants down, exposing himself shamelessly, the way Charles wants him. 

Charles sighs, trailing his fingers appreciatively down the bared flesh, and Erik stares unseeing out the door. 

He does trust Charles, trusts that every person who walks by the door will see a room unoccupied, a desk scattered with papers and thoughtlessly abandoned, and when Charles starts laying into him—one smack after another, broad-handed and harsh with the force of Charles’s strength—Erik winces his eyes shut and surrenders himself. His mind is feverish with the stream of Charles’s thoughts. His ass and thighs are soon burning, aching with the blows. 

But he holds still, lets himself cry out quietly under the loud crack of Charles’s hand, and trusts Charles with this, too.


	9. faun/satyr verse - non-con warning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Also for the "submit porn" askbox meme, this time for velvetcadence. Takes place in, like, an AU of our Bleat AU, where Charles is the satyr and Erik the faun... But with a darker backstory (in short: Charles is an explorer, Erik lost or was abandoned by his prior mate). 
> 
> Hard warnings for the **non-con** aspect of the heat dynamic on this one, as well as for (assumedly nonconsensual) **watersports** (which, to my weak defense, is part of the "goats are kinky fucks" defense of our entire Bleat AU experience), and for pregnancy. Reminder on the Bleat AU thing: fauns are waist-down does and satyrs goats, regardless of the gender/human-half appearance of the faun or satyr.

It’s shady and the wind rushes harsh through the copse of pines, the spring’s hardly started yet and this far north Charles is forever freezing. 

His scarf is long discarded, snarled in a nearby branch. Sweat trails down his spine, darkens his hair and fur, his hands slip and fight to clutch the writhing body beneath him. Between his panting breaths, he growls again and digs his hands against feverish skin, leans in and scores his teeth against flesh, and fucks his hips harder into that sloppy wet hole when he hears bleating.

The faun underneath him is delicious, all salt and musk, and a curiosity, too. Charles is no stranger to the pleasures of rut, but he’d never found it so enticing; he’d never expected it here, not in this strange desolate land that his southern-valley tribe has never mapped. There’s other satyrs and fauns out there, he knows, who live as isolated as his own people—as a whole, they’ve much less wanderlust than other creatures like centaurs and humans, they’ve much more lust instead.

Maybe the fauns up north are all like this, whipcord muscle and silver-tinged fur. Maybe they’re all just exactly like this one, just as tall—taller, really—than a satyr. Maybe they’re all scarred warriors, all deep-voiced bleating and fight, all hard-earned submission. 

Charles grunts, the heavy weight of his balls smacking loud against the faun’s swollen cunt. 

Maybe. But he doubts it, he simply can’t imagine any other faun like this one. His hands skim up again, over the startling off-season curve of the faun’s belly, going again for the temptation of dribbling milk. 

Do the does breed in autumn, up here? Do satyrs abandon their mates as a matter of course? The faun smells only of musk and the sweetness of bred does, and nothing at all of a satyr, and Charles finds it all at once unthinkable and irresistible. 

Another thrust, and another, the faun clenching and spurting against the thick drive of Charles’s prick, and soon Charles is baying and filling that rippling fertile passage with seed. 

Perhaps it’s not the custom up here, but when he’s pulled out he flips the faun back over, minding the swell of his stomach. The faun blinks up at him, perplexed, hands clawed against pine needles, and Charles tells himself he’s just doing it for the faun’s protection when he aims, when he stains the stranger’s fur with his mark.


	10. digital devil saga crossover - game spoilers!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last one for the circa 2014 submit-fic-to-someone's askbox thing on tumblr, this time for ang3lish1! 
> 
> Like the 3-sentence fic for ang3lish1, this takes place in the Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga universe. This one, though, I'm not sure if it makes much sense outside the context of the games--and if you ever wanted to play said games, it contains MASSIVE SPOILERS for both games. 
> 
> That being said, I thought I'd post it for completion's sake. So, in the old way of hiding spoilers (is there a new way??), highlight for the necessary plot lowdown if you'd like to read: the character Charles is based on is a research scientist with a terminal, slow-progressing disease; Erik's is also, but is further (and importantly for this fic) intersex.

It's been years, that they've been working on the cure together. Years long with late nights, failed experiments, the distasteful politics of the Karma Society.

Erik steps into Charles's room, snug and private and oddly tranquil in the midst of the isolation ward.

There isn't much they can do, the doctors here, and Erik hasn't visited Charles in days--he's been up, day and night, putting all his energy into that elusive cure.

Sitting on the bed, Charles beams up at him, bright and joyous, utterly without judgment. He raises one hand--the left, the one now gone fully stone--and gives a short, if a bit morbid--wave. Erik can't help grinning back, a slight bearing of teeth.

These years have been long, fruitless, but not completely without joy. Erik thinks back, of the long nights listening to Charles laugh. To watching him misplace his glasses, time and time again. To hearing him sing, sweet and gentle, to his test tubes and Petri dishes.

To knowing, to trusting in the certainty of all the data before him, that Charles loves him, and he, Charles.

"I'm sorry," he breathes, shattering the silence. "I've wasted so much time, being afraid."

Charles tilts his head, glancing up at Erik over his glasses.

"It's normal," he says, tucking the diseased arm behind him. "The disease process is--well, it's difficult to be dispassionate, I'd imagine, even for you, it being someone you know... And anyway, it's just been a few days and I--mmph!"

Erik kisses him solidly, his mouth firm and desperate and nervous with inexperience. Against him, Charles hums, a musical little noise, and clutches him closer. Guides him, gently, into a deep and wondering embrace.

When they do finally part, they're both hard--Erik can feel Charles's arousal, pressed up against him. But Erik is more, besides.

He clears his throat, kneels back in deference to the slickness gathering down between his thighs, beneath his cock.

"I didn't mean the syndrome," he says. His voice is gravelly, rough--the testosterone his body produces easily overpowers the rest. "I mean--this. I was afraid of this."

"Of--being with me?" Charles asks, frowning a bit. He straightens his glasses, a thoughtless little gesture that Erik's seen a thousand times, that he loves more and more every day. "But why--you know I'm--"

"I know," Erik breathes. "I know, but I'm not--" he pauses, not certain how to continue. Words feel clinical and inadequate, and Charles is gazing up at him like he's some rare gift and--

And Charles’s hand lies inert and grey on the hospital linen. 

They have so very little time, and Erik has wasted years.

"Can I just show you?"

Behind the thin frames, Charles's eyes widen. He swallows, nods once, a frantic approval, and Erik smiles ruefully.

"Then, here," he says. He unbuttons the crisp white oxford, pulls off the thin shirt underneath.

Charles is the smartest man Erik knows, the nearest Erik has ever had to an equal--better, in fact, for all his kindness and the superior depth of artistic intellect--and he knows without looking that Charles has come to a conclusion already, seeing the final layer.

"You're," Charles says, putting his good hand on Erik's side, muscle and incongruous fat constrained by smooth dark fabric. "God, that's--fine, brilliant, even--Erik," and flustered, Erik glares at the dull reproduction art above the bed.

"Shut up," he snaps, a touch more unkind than intended, "let me finish."

"Of course, do go on,” Charles replies, his hand sliding down to rest on a thigh as Erik pulls off the binder. 

He knows his breasts are not data enough. In all truth, he doesn’t mind them—it’s simply easier, he’s found, to pick a side and display only the expected—and he minds the rest just as little. 

It’s just… complicated. 

Unbuckling his belt, unbuttoning his slacks, Erik does it all facing a faded poster. A meadow, a time long past, when the sun seemed not as cruel. Shoving the rest of his clothes off, he kneels before Charles, and is for once careless in his nudity. 

There is so very little left on this planet to lose, and should Charles reject him—yes, it’d sting, but it’s not like Charles hasn’t been taken from him already. 

“Oh,” Charles breathes. Now his hands are both on Erik’s thighs, flesh and stone both, and he runs them over the lean muscle. 

Erik shivers. 

“I know it’s—improbable, at best. And if you’d rather—“

“No,” Charles interrupts. He’s smiling, gentle and fond. His good fingers track up, tease lightly at the base of Erik’s flagging erection, slide down to stroke the weight of his balls. “No, I’d—I’ve always wanted you. You’re perfect, just glorious. May I?”

“Yes,” Erik sighs, kneeing in closer, and spreading his thighs. Charles brushes down and back and rubs tentatively at the folds of Erik’s cunt. 

Charles grins, hearing him moan, and slides his fingers, quick little circles. The tiny room echoes with the sounds of harsh breathing and wet flesh, and Erik thrusts himself back and back. 

“Actually,” Charles pants, and Erik doesn’t need to open his eyes to see that infuriating expression Charles gets, scientific curiosity personified, “Actually, intersexuality is relatively common, as human conditions go. Perhaps up to one percent of the—“ 

“Charles,” he growls, pulling away, and Charles is blushing and scooting back. 

“God! I’m sorry, I can’t believe I—I always say the absolute worst—“

“Charles,” he repeats, ripping carelessly at the loose tie of Charles’s hospital-issue bottoms. 

He wants Charles, has for years, and as he tugs the blue-green fabric down and exposes the thick shaft of Charles’s cock, as he straddles Charles’s hips and guides him in, he can’t help whispering the last of his secrets against the curve of Charles’s ear as he fucks himself harder and harder. 

“You should know. I ran the tests myself. I’m fertile,” he breathes, and it’s a poor attempt at pillow talk, even for him. 

But Charles only clutches him closer, kisses him softly over jaw and cheek, as he rides Charles to completion. 

“That’s—I understand,” Charles whispers, and Erik tastes salt as he nuzzles close, hoping for the future, for a lasting reminder of the only kindness he’s known.


End file.
